DUKE CENTER – Local resident Ronda Skoken is going all the way
to help somebody get a new kidney.

The person she most wants to help is Fred Haskins of Rob Roy
Road. He has been on the transplant list at a Pittsburgh hospital
for some time.

Skoken is not a match for Haskins, but she learned of the PAIR
Partners Program from him. It is operated out of the Buffalo (N.Y.)
General Transplant Clinic. Genetic testing is done for scanning
coding into a computer. Once a month, the computer checks for a
match.

“Fred and I will be matched as a pair,” Skoken said, “and he
stands a much better chance of getting a kidney this way. As soon
as he gets a kidney, I will donate mine and it will happen all at
once.”

Both the Skoken and Haskins families are members of the
congregation at the Duke Center United Methodist Church, where
Ronda Skoken first announced several weeks ago that she had been
going through tests to see if she could be a kidney donor.

The preliminary tests were done in Bradford and the final tests
were done at Buffalo General Hospital, where she was found to be
completely well.

PAIR Partners will fly her anywhere, but she must buy her own
ticket. She will be receiving a kit in the mail containing tubes to
hold blood, which will be drawn at Bradford and sent to a
recipient, where the blood will be mixed together to determine if
it is compatible.

Skoken said “a person doesn’t have to be a close match anymore
because they have so many new drugs to keep the body from rejecting
a new organ.”

She also said Buffalo General is excited about the PAIR
Partners, which is a national program.

When asked what inspired Skoken to become a donor, she said “I
felt so sorry for the Haskins family. Something inside me seemed to
be pushing me. It’s bigger than I am.”

Her husband, Dan, has supported her, and said if she couldn’t do
it, he would.

The Skokens are the parents of three daughters. Ronda Skoken
said she would be glad to talk to anybody interested in learning
more about PAIR Partners.